bare diction and verfification, and many perfons are capable of clofely copying him, or fome other poet, as to ftyle and numbers, who have no bright genius or invention, and are incapable of compofing an elegant poem: but, after all, the Sibylline Oracles are juft as like Homer, as the Epiftola Obfcurorum Virorum are like Cicero's Epiftles to Atticus.

Homer's prophecy is indeed remarkable, and might afford fome obfervations not quite fo childish as thofe above-mentioned. We may conjecture,

1. That the Poet went to Troy, i. e. to the region fo called, and carefully furveyed the place, and the country about it; and indeed in his Ilias he paints and describes, as one who knew every spot of ground;

2. That the refidue of the Trojans, after the departure of the Greeks, affembled together and fettled in their own country, under Æneas;

3. That when Homer came to Troy, a prince reigned there who was defcended from Eneas, and might be his grand-fon;

and

4. That this Prince treated Homer kindly, gave him fome memoirs and informations concerning the Trojan chiefs, and particularly concerning his own ancestor;

5. That therefore Homer frequently celebrates Æneas, as the Son of a Goddefs, a warrior of great bravery, and of an amiable character, and one much favoured and beloved by Ο Εσι δέ τις προπάροιθε πόλεως αἰπεῖν κολώνη.

II. B. 811.

the

the Gods; he alfo mentions fome particularities concerning him, as that Priamus P did not love and honour him according to his deserts;

6. That Homer lived at least ninety years after the Trojan war.

The most ancient writer who fpeaks of the Sibyl is Heraclitus, about 500 years before Chrift, after which she and her predictions are mentioned by Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, and who not.

The fum of the judgment which Fabricius, after a diligent examination, formed upon this fubject, is as follows:

I. Nothing is more uncertain than what is related of the number of the Sibyls, whether there

was one or more.

II. Concerning the Sibyls, fome think that they were infpired of God; others that they were poffelfed by evil Spirits; others that they were affifted by a frong imagination and enthusiasm, and a kind of natural divination; to which must be added a fourth opinion, that these oracles were all fraud and human imposture, and that, if any of them were ever fulfilled, it was by hazard.

III. It seems an affertion too confident, to afcribe all the prophecies of the Sibyl and of other Pagans to knavery or chance, and it is more reafonable to fuppofe that fometimes there might be Something præternatural in the cafe.

Ούνεκ'

ἄρ ̓ ἐπλὸν ἐόνα με' ἀνδράσιν, ἔτι τίεσκεν.

ag

II. N. 460.

IV. In the time of Cicero there were fome Sibylline Oracles which were Acroftichs, and which, as Cicero obferves, were the labour of a plodding impoftor, and not the prophecy of an inspired perfon.

V. The Romans had Sibylline Oracles in the time of their Kings, which were kept with great care in the Capitol, and confulted afterwards upon important occafions. They were burnt with the Capitol, A. U. C. 670. and the Romans got a new collection from various places.

VI. This fecond collection was burnt by Stilicho in the time of Honorius.

VII. Befides thefe Collections, there were other Sibylline Oracles made and handed about from time to time.

VIII. In Virgil's fourth Eclogue;

Ultima Cumæi venit jam carminis ætas : Carmen Cumæum probably means Hefiod's poem; as Probus thinks, and ultima ætas is the fame as prima, and means the Saturnian times, and the golden age: Or, ultima ætas means the last, the iron age; and then venit is fuit, præteriit, is paffed and gone. Virgil took nothing here from the Sibylline Oracles.

IX. Our prefent collection contains not the books which were offered to Tarquin;

X. Nor the fecond fet of Oracles which were brought to Rome;

XI. Nor thofe Oracles which were received by the Pagans.

VOL. I.

XII No

XII. Nothing contained in it ought to be admitted as made before the birth of Christ, unless we can find as ancient vouchers for it.

XIII. There are in this collection fome lines which the author took from old Pagan Oracles, from Homer, Orpheus, and other poets:

XIV. But much is taken from the Old and New Teftament.

XV. It contains not all the Sibylline Oracles of which the Fathers made ufe, but it has the greater part of them.

XVI. Thefe Oracles were forged in the first, fecond, and third centuries, not by Pagans, or Jews, but by Heretics or orthodox Chriftians; not by the Fathers, but by fome unknown perfons. XVII. There was no law which made it a capital crime to read thefe Sibylline Oracles.

Such is the fentiment of Fabricius, who would have granted that there is not extant one Sibylline Oracle, upon which we can depend as upon a prophecy fairly uttered before the event, and plainly accomplished. I fee not why we should have a more favourable opinion of those which are loft.

The great difference of words and verses which appears even in the fame paffages of the Sibylline Oracles, as they are cited by different Fathers, fhews that the Collections of thefe poems varied much, and that every Librarian thrust in what he thought proper, and what he had picked up here and there from any dunghill.

Amongst

Amongst the defenders of the Sibylline Oracles was Ifaac Voffius, who wrote a book on that fubject, a learned book, for he could write no other but as to judgment, you must not feek it there. Credimus, fays he, omnes iflos libros (Apocryphos) a Judæis fuiffe compofitos, DEO IMPELLENTE IPSORUM MENTES ad fignificandum gentibus Chrifti adventum. Infinita itaque illi edidere volumina; partim fub Patriarcharum et Prophetarum fuorum nominibus, quales fuere libri qui olim lecti fuere fub nominibus Adami, Enochi, Abrahami, Moyfis, Elia, Efaia, et Jeremiæ; partim vero fub nominibus illorum, quorum magna apud gentiles effet exiftimatio, veluti Hyftafpis, Mercurii Trismegifti, Zoroaftris, Sibyllarum, Orphei, Phocylida, et complurium aliorum. De Sibyl. Or. c. 7. It must be owned to have been a generous proceeding in Voffius, to take the weaker fide on feveral occafions, and to be an advocate for those who stood most in need of affiftance, in which charitable behaviour he has been, and will be imitated; for this fort of charity also never faileth: but for inventing and maintaining paradoxes, he never had an equal, except Father Harduin.

Virgil's fourth Eclogue was written, as Bishop Chandler and Mr. Maffon have obferved, when Pollio was Conful, and the defign of it was to compliment Auguftus, or Cæfar Octavianus, as he was then called, and to foretel the birth of a fon whom his wife Scribonia fhould bear, who was then with-child: but it proved a daughter, and the infamous Julia. See Chandler's

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